[Rhodes22-list] A Global Intelligence Briefing For CEOs

[Robert Skinner]

Hank wrote:
> ...
> The part about the declining birthrate I found very interesting.  I believe
> you can even break it down further.  Meyer breaks it down by ethnicity, but
> not by socio-economic status.  From my personal observation while living in
> Mexico, The upper and middle class are having fewer babies, while the lower
> class have more.

Hank, this looks like "evolution in action" [Oath of Fealty 
(Mass Market Paperback) by Larry Niven (Author), Jerry 
Pournelle (Author)].

  http://www.amazon.com/Oath-Fealty-Larry-Niven/dp/0671532278

Let me pose a problem that needs some attention:

It would appear that when you don't have enough money or 
education to indulge in other activities, there is always 
making babies.

In addition, we have some theological organizations that 
actively promote procreation -- as long as they get to 
specify how, when, where, and with whom it is accomplished.
These organizations tend to target the poor and uneducated.

There is an observation about democracies which I must 
paraphrase, as I don't remember the actual verbage or 
attribution:  "The majority (in this case, the poor) can 
tax the well-to-do few to support themselves."

Given these two trends, it appears that democracies will 
begin to degenerate as soon as they opt for universal 
sufferage.

Education:

Acting against this progression is education.  Earlier 
in US history, immigration was at a low enough level so 
that people coming into the country were motivated to 
and could hope to become prosperous within a generation 
through public education.  At that time education was a 
one-on-one small group exercise in one-room schoolhouses 
across the country, and served to transmit cultural 
morms via osmosis.

There was plenty of room for malcontents and adventurers 
to move west, and a person could adopt a new persona 
when they moved on.  Accomplishments and redemption were 
possible.

Unfortunately, as we have consolidated and regulated 
our public school system, we have de-regionalized and 
de-cultured it in the name of efficiency, losing its 
very essential capability to transmit cultural norms 
and social values to the immigrants that we absorb as
well as our native youth.

We seem to be breeding economic ambition and basic 
intellect out of out population - to the arguable 
extent that these attributes are related to class or 
income.

So -- the question:

What remains to prevent the intellegent and privately 
well-educated few from becoming the new slaves of our 
socio-economic structure?

-- 
Robert Skinner  "Squirrel Haven" 
Gorham, Maine         04038-1331
s/v "Little Dipper" & "Edith P."